


Towards

by bunnoculars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 08:09:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13566414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Xavi and Villa through the years. (Or more precisely, 2005-2011.)





	Towards

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011. If I knew then what I know now...this fic would have been even angstier? haha idk. 2010-11 Barça + 2008-2010 Spain was the dream.
> 
> Also, if I could write this fic again, aside from the obvious stuff that comes with looking at something you wrote seven years ago...I would not lean so heavily on the whole "Villa usurps Raúl" narrative, because it's never something I really bought. It was just convenient lol. They were such different players, and while they obviously respect and like each other, I'm pretty sure neither of them consider the other a touchstone for their respective careers.

Xavi doesn’t know what time it is, just that it’s late. It’s the sort of late he remembers from his childhood, when he’d come back from Camp Nou with his dad, night flying by his window, heart hammering and mind saturated with all he’d seen, with just fucking football and how beautiful it all was. Except he’s not twelve anymore, he’s thirty-one and the dream isn’t hurtling forward, it’s built up behind him, to this.

“I always knew you’d reach a hundred.”

Xavi smiles, glancing sideways at Villa; he’s smiling too, white teeth and shining eyes and maybe it’s stupid but that’s what Xavi loves most about him, the way his whole face lights up like that. Xavi knocks his knee. “Yeah, well, I always knew you’d reach forty-five.”

Villa laughs. “That’s bullshit.”

“Maybe,” Xavi admits, then snorts and holds Villa’s eyes. “I figured, with the midfield you’ve got—”

“Remind me to thank Iniesta later,” Villa says, grin widening teasingly. Xavi opens his mouth to speak, but Villa waves a hand and cuts him off. “Fuck you, I always knew it too. Since I knew you’d reach a hundred. It’s symbiosis, or whatever the fuck.”

“Villa.” Villa is like that, or rather like that with him because he’s a little different with everybody, halfway between a laugh and a retort but never quite serious unless they’re in the middle of a game. Xavi likes it but it he hates the fuck out of it sometimes, too. He clears his throat. “You know I really mean it, right?”

“I know you mean it now,” Villa says, serious now, as serious as he’s going to get; his eyes flick away and he bites his lip. “When Raúl was still around…”

Xavi makes an impatient noise. “Fuck Raúl.”

Villa’s eyes snap to him and he reaches up to push at him. “Fucking culé,” he says disgustedly, but he’s struggling with a smile, Xavi can tell, even if his mouth wasn’t twitching he could see it in his eyes.

“Watch it, I’m not the only one now,” he teases him, and when Villa’s hand comes up to shove him again, Xavi wrestles it away until Villa gives up and their fingers brush apart. They lapse into silence and Xavi can see Villa’s smile but he can see the uncertainty lurking just behind it, too, and it pisses him off that he still has to say this, that Villa doesn’t fucking know it, already. “Listen, Villa, it’s like….” He pauses, trying to figure out what he’s saying, before finally just, “You can just tell sometimes, you know? I could tell with you.”

 

Xavi can’t remember when he first heard about him. He remembers the goal against Barcelona. It wasn’t like the rest of them, when a team like Zaragoza scores against them and the world goes off kilter for a few minutes until they get back to where everything is supposed to be. Well, maybe it was, because everything did go back, except for him. He stuck with Xavi; he was different somehow, was different from everyone else but Xavi remembers thinking, _he could be one of us._

 

Puyol talked to him about it afterwards; Xavi didn’t say anything about it but he didn’t have to, because Puyol took the words right out of his thoughts, spoke Xavi’s mind or whatever the fuck.

“That was a fucking goal,” Puyi said. “A fucking _golazo_.”

Xavi knew Puyi was thinking what he was thinking, but he still had to put it like a question, because otherwise…

“You mean Villa’s?”

(Now he can see it like it was, knows he was seeing David Villa for the first time, el Siete de España.)

Puyi looked at him like it was crazy that he needed to ask. “Call me an elitist, but fuck. I’m not used to getting skinned like that by _Zaragoza_.”

The next year it had been Valencia and two at Camp Nou and Victor and there was no need to ask questions anymore. Blue shirt, white shirt, whatever the fuck, now Xavi was just waiting for the red shirt, to meet him, as a teammate, to see.

 

Xavi can’t remember the first time Villa got called up, either. He remembers that he kept to himself a lot, hanging at the edge of the Valencia crowd, Joaquín and Albelda and Marchena. That he barely ate anything and barely said a word, just put his head down and worked his ass off. And when he wasn’t working, he was watching, all the time, Raúl and Morientes and Puyol and Iker and Xavi, too; watching, like a little boy through a chained link fence, waiting for an autograph, but more than that, like…like he’d grown up at that fence but now suddenly he was supposed to be inside, picking them apart and trying to put it all together. 

It seems crazy now, given that they’re almost two years apart and that’s it, but Villa had really seemed like a fucking lost kid then. (Xavi feels a little bit of that has stayed with him. Not with Villa, with Xavi, how he sees Villa.) All sharp elbows and flashing eyes, the ridiculous hair style and the studs in his ears and that fucking soul patch, but it all worked for him, somehow, and worked for Xavi.

It was a while before they talked.

 

Raúl hadn’t said anything, never said anything, not really, but Iker came up to Xavi one day during training. They were on a break and Xavi had left Iniesta with Puyi and gone to get a drink, almost like they were taking turns with the baby or something, which should have seemed ridiculous, because Andrés didn’t look like it but he could take care of himself.

“What do you think of him?” Iker said. Xavi stood up from where he’d been crouched next to the cooler, followed Iker’s gaze to where Villa was standing off by himself, juggling a ball with his feet.

“Well, considering he fucked you guys over in the Copa final last season…” Iker pushed him, a little too hard to be fucking around if he wasn’t Iker and if they weren’t madridista and culé. Xavi’s smile faded as he considered him. Villa. “I don’t know. He’s gonna be pretty damn good for Spain, someday.”

“Don’t talk about him like he’s a fucking kid, I think he’s my age,” Iker said disgustedly, but Xavi knew that instant they were thinking the same thing, opposite things. _Pretty damn good for_ —Next moment, Iker rolled his eyes at him. “Of course, _you’re_ so fucking old…”

“Yeah, fuck off,” Xavi said calmly, waving a hand, before feeling suddenly like he needed to go on, needed to explain seeing Villa as a kid in a way that didn’t mean that, didn’t mean one or the other and fuck the rest. “I’m just saying—he never fucking talks, for one thing.”

Iker didn’t take his eyes off Villa.

“Talk to him, then.”

Iker was going to make a great mother hen of a captain when Raúl’s time was finally run. Xavi thought about telling him that, all the more because it would piss him off, but…

Talk to him.

 

When Xavi approaches Villa it’s later, at dinner. Villa is sitting by himself again when Xavi walks in, and suddenly Xavi’s had enough of seeing him like that and he passes the Barça end of the table and goes to sit down across from him. Villa starts when he hears the chair being dragged out, but when he looks up at Xavi his glare is fixed firmly in place; Xavi’s wondered a couple of times if maybe Villa’s an asshole, with an expression like that glued to his face.

“Xavi,” Xavi introduces himself, stretching out a hand, but Villa just raises an eyebrow at him like he’s being an idiot.

“I know,” he says brusquely, and that’s it, I know, but Xavi knows right away that he likes him. He’s about to let his hand drop when Villa seems to realize belatedly it’s there and reaches out to grasp it; his hand is like his voice, softer than he expected.

“I know you too,” Xavi says once he’s sat down and pulled his plate towards him. “You’re that little fucker from Zaragoza. Valencia now, though.”

Villa almost smiles and it’s the strangest thing; it’s like sunlight slipping through clouds, like his features lighten up somehow and if he looked young before, now he looks even fucking younger. And his voice is too young, too, when he says, “You remember that?”

“You’re Victor’s new favorite—Valdés,” Xavi clarifies quickly, when the joke is lost on him and Villa’s brow starts to furrow; he likes him better like this, without the scowl. “Where are you from?”

“Sporting,” Villa says immediately, so immediately that Xavi has to laugh.

“And before that your mother’s womb,” he says, rolling his eyes. “No I mean, like, where did you grow up?”

He fiddles with his fork and for a second Xavi’s worried that he’s going to be an unbearable fuck and go with Sporting again, but pink is creeping into Villa’s cheeks and Xavi wants to take it back. Whatever it is back. Before he can, though—

“Asturias. Tuilla.” Villa’s voice is a mumble and he’s staring into his plate. Xavi opens his mouth to speak, but Villa shifts in his chair and goes on, “You wouldn’t know it. It’s small, not like Barcelona.” He glances up at Xavi again, finally. “Mining town.”

“So your father…”

“Yeah. But he’s retired now,” Villa says shortly. He pushes his food around some more; Xavi’s fucking starving and he’s never been self-conscious about eating, but he’s starting to feel like a pig, watching him. Villa eyes him at length and it’s almost like he’s plucking up his courage before, “And yours?”

It takes a second before Xavi gets it. He swallows, shrugs. “Footballer, like me. Retired like yours, obviously.”

He takes another bite, waits for Villa to say something like, _I’ve never heard of him_ , or, _what team did he play for_ , even a courtesy laugh for the retired thing, but Villa just sits there, eyes flitting to him occasionally, like he’s waiting for _Xavi_ to say something; the first thing that comes to mind is, does this kid even know how to have a fucking conversation? But he’s starting to get it now, Villa isn’t an asshole, he’s just fucking _shy_ , and it’s like Xavi doesn’t even know himself right now, because he’s finding it _cute_. How shy he is and how he’s not admitting it.

“Maradona or Pelé?” he offers finally.

Villa blinks at him before his mouth curls and he gives in to it, lets himself be a fourteen-year-old boy again for a minute, pouring over _Marca_ and _El mundo deportivo_ and arguing about all sorts of impossible duels and match ups.

“Maradona.” There’s a pause and Xavi thinks he’s going to have to go again, give Villa another push, before Villa goes on. “Di Stefano or Puskas?”

“Puskas, why the fuck would you ask a culé that?” Xavi says immediately, before snorting and waving a hand. “No, seriously, probably di Stefano. Zidane, or—”

“Zidane,” Villa says, doesn’t even wait for him to finish, which Xavi guesses is fair enough if they’re talking about Zidane. Then Villa’s mouth twists into a smirk, almost. “Figo, or—?”

Xavi reaches over to hit him and Villa shields himself and when he finally lifts his hands away Xavi realizes they’re both laughing; the minute he realizes Villa is fucking with him and the minute he hears him laughing, that’s when he thinks for sure that he fucking loves this kid.

 

It’s a while before he sees Villa smile like that again.

 

Scrimmage the next day, the day before the game against Slovakia. Xavi played for the starters, Villa for the reserves. They played for real because Aragonés was breathing down their necks like a fucking ogre and because they needed this tomorrow. They needed it so maybe Spain could walk, not limp, into the World Cup, so they could put the play-off behind them and forget it, take it from there. Xavi didn’t feel Spanish, felt Catalan (was Catalan), but he felt this team so intensely and sometimes it was like he didn’t know how, sometimes couldn’t, even, and it killed him.

Villa played for the reserves and he scored, but it didn’t matter, Xavi knew that and Villa knew it too. He still wouldn’t start, because.

Raúl watched Villa for the first time that day, as Iniesta (who gave the assist) jogged over and they embraced briefly, and Villa caught Xavi looking at him, gave him a half-smile, but didn’t catch Raúl. As Xavi looked at the two of them he saw the future and his chest ached because he didn’t know what it would be in the end, just had an idea of what it could be, now.

 

He wonders what Raúl sees.

 

“Why don’t you just fucking talk to him?”

“Who?”

“You know, dumbass.”

_“Who?”_

He sighs, gives in again.

“Raúl.”

 

And it was like that for a while. Xavi knew well how long it had taken before he could really call Villa a friend, remembered how difficult it was to get him to open up and how long it took before Villa would talk to Iker, too; before Villa would talk tactics with him and before he realized what a smartass Villa could be. And that was something.

But Raúl…Raúl was different, had always been different for Villa. Xavi himself hadn’t known what to think of him when they first met as teammates; he’d been young, raised to bleed blaugrana, and the memories of Raúl in white were to much to get over, at first. It had taken a while for Xavi to realize Raúl was human, and a while longer for him to admit that Raúl was actually just a nice guy.

But for Villa, it was like Raúl wasn’t human—couldn’t be—he was el Siete, el Ángel de Madrid, the little red figure on the television he’d been sick with love for as a teenager. Villa watched him constantly; he wasn’t too obvious about it, just furtive glances at dinner and longer looks in training, when it was like he couldn’t take his eyes off him. But if he thought Xavi wasn’t on to him by now…

Well, fuck.

 

Eventually, when he and Villa are passing a ball back and forth during training, Xavi just hauls back and kicks it over to where Raúl is talking with Aragonés. Villa gives him the glare of death but Xavi doesn’t help him, so in the end he has to jog over to retrieve it. Xavi watches him from a distance, barely bites back a laugh when he sees Villa asking Aragonés for it back, the way his body seems to bow back with the brunt of his irritation. But he doesn’t have to say a word to Raúl and hasn’t when he turns to go back, until—

Raúl puts a hand on his shoulder, pulls him back in. As Xavi watches them and they keep talking and talking, there’s a part of him that doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the way they stand close together or the way Raúl gets Villa to laugh or the way he reaches out to ruffle Villa’s hair, fingers brushing the nape of his neck as Villa walks away, back to him. Xavi.

He guesses maybe a part of him wants Raúl to stay the little figure on the television screen for Villa, leaves it at that.

Lets himself leave it at that.

 

“Something has to change. It’s the same… _fucking_ …thing. Every time.” Iker’s eyes bored into his; his eyes were like his hands, clenched in his lap, knuckles white. “We’re Spain, you know? _Spain_. When are we going to fucking show it?”

Xavi couldn’t answer him, not when Iker sounded like…like _that._

“They had Zidane, man,” he said instead, but the joke was dead before it left his lips; humor was dead, right now. “We just have…us.”

Xavi couldn’t blame Iker for not having an answer for him, either. The dressing room was empty around them, the quiet swallowing them up after the roar of the crowd and the sound of Albelda choking back tears as they changed.

“What do you think Aragonés will do?” Iker asked finally.

“There’s not a lot he can do. It’s us who have to…” Xavi rubbed a hand across his face, pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and welcomed the black. He didn’t want to think about, couldn’t stop thinking about it, but the only thing he could—“We can’t win unless we play football. He can let us do that.”

“Let us play football?” Iker’s voice seemed louder, somehow, until Xavi opened his eyes again and the world came rushing back. He realized with a start that Iker was actually fucking _smiling_ all of the sudden. “That sounds like something fucking…fucking Cruyff would say.”

“Well?” Xavi was even more surprised to feel a smile of his own form, but it was a tired smile and only just. They stared at each other for a long time before Xavi said finally, slowly but it surprised him how sure of it he was, “He can let us play _our_ football.”

_Our football._

There was a question neither of them answered, that both thought of and kept thinking of, there in that locker room but outside of it too, in the days and months that followed, until September and Belfast and.

 

By the time Xavi’s gotten dressed Villa’s still just sitting there, broodingly, sweaty and disheveled, boots scuffed and stained with grass.

They both scored today. He might have said, _good job today_ , and Villa would have said, _you too_ , but they lost, lost to fucking Northern Ireland and there are no good jobs; all Xavi wants to know is if there’s a beginning or an end to this spiral downward, or if that’s Spain and that’s them and that’s it.

He picks up his bag.

“Window seat?” he says instead.

Villa shrugs. “Yeah.”

Xavi is going to leave but his feet aren’t taking him towards the door and somehow he’s still standing here, looking down at Villa.

“Villa,” he says, and Villa looks up, and the look on his face, it’s—“Take your shower, already. You fucking stink.”

But Villa isn’t looking at him anymore; his gaze has slid past him, across the room, to.

“See you on the bus,” Villa says.

When Xavi reaches the door of the locker room, he turns back, catches sight of Villa pulling off his shirt, back turned to him, and Xavi’s breath catches as he takes in the gleam of his skin and the curve of his spine, before he realizes and tears his eyes away, gets the fuck out of there.

 

“Hold it! I want to talk to you for a minute.”

Xavi turned to see who he’d just gone by, but the voice was enough and he knew and sure enough, Aragonés. His insides turned to lead but he stepped back, over to him.

“Míster,” he said cautiously, and Aragonés grunted, folded his arms.

“Spare me the míster bullshit right now,” he said. “Just tell me. Where the fuck is Raúl?”

“Raúl?” Xavi ran a hand through his hair, blew air out through his cheeks, trying to remember, not to remember. “Haven’t seen him. Why—?”

“Because I haven’t seen the son of a bitch either, that’s why,” Aragonés interrupted him impatiently. “Use your head, kid. Where _could_ he be?”

Xavi didn’t want to think about it, for some reason, didn’t want to think he was, but Aragonés said _could_ and Aragonés was Aragonés, so—“Still in the locker room. I don’t know.”

Aragonés huffed in annoyed disgust. “That’s the last damn thing I…”

Xavi left before he heard something about naked men, anything naked, just nudity, from Aragonés. As he walked away, he heard the curse, the muttered, “Fucking Raúl.”

 

“Andrés. You seen Villa around?”

It was a stupid question, but he’d been held up by Aragonés, so maybe…

“No. Locker room, maybe…?” Iniesta said, looking taken aback; and that was fair enough, normally if Xavi didn’t know…didn’t know—

If Xavi didn’t know then Iniesta didn’t either.

But Xavi knew, he—

 

_But Villa isn’t looking at him anymore, his gaze has slid past him, across the room, to._

 

Xavi’s heart sears and his mouth goes dry, he’s sweating and his hands are trembling, and he feels like there’s a weight on his chest, crushing down on him, paralyzing him. But this isn’t one of those times where the little old lady gets superhuman strength and lifts a car—she has to lie there and let it crush her. Knows it’s crushing her but he can’t do anything and it’s crushing him and what. Why is he shaking. Why does he feel. What. He feels—

Like this—like this. Why does he feel like this?

When Villa finally gets on the bus Xavi thinks he knows. His lips are swollen and his hair is lying across his forehead and when he sits down next to Xavi, it’s gingerly, carefully, like he’s afraid he’s going to break something; he doesn’t say a word and neither can Xavi, he’s so fucking angry but when Villa’s head tilts onto his shoulder and Xavi knows he’s only pretending to be asleep, he lets him, and Xavi thinks he knows.

Knows.

 

_Our football._

_Who is ‘our’?_

 

They never talked about it.

When Raúl left and Villa became el Siete, they never talked about it.

But Xavi knew. Better than Villa knew, and _that—_

That.

They never talked about it.

 

He knows what it’s going to be like when he walks into the room, sees the rigid set of his back, but he goes in anyway, crosses the room and sinks down next to him.

“Hey,” he says.

“Xavi,” Villa says tonelessly. “Hey.”

Then he looks back out the window, out at the trees and the sky and the land they’d come to conquer. Xavi looks too, doesn’t think it’s too much to look at when he thinks of Barcelona at night and the sunrise along the beaches.

“Puyol told me to tell you he’ll break Podolski’s legs on Sunday, if it comes to that,” he offers at length, knocking Villa’s knee gently with his. Villa’s unmoved, though Xavi thinks maybe there was a twitch at the corner of his lips.

“Remind me to thank him later.”

Xavi gnaws at his lip, figures what the hell, and tries, “After he’s broken his legs or just later, generally?”

“Asshole,” Villa says, and he does smile this time, but it’s all wrong, dark and twisted and his heart isn’t in it.

“You know it,” Xavi says anyway, nudging him again, before allowing himself to be serious, finally, because humor and cheering him up, it wasn’t. Not this time. “How are you?”

Villa scowls down at his legs; feet dangling off the bed, enveloped in shapeless track pants, it’s hard to tell there’s anything wrong and Xavi thinks that’s fucked up.

“I think it’s getting better,” he says, but his voice is the opposite of his words, lifeless. Hopeless. “With recovery work…”

“Look, Guaje…” Xavi takes a deep breath; he’s not good at this kind of thing, but it’s Villa and Villa is Villa and Xavi needs badly for someone to be there for him, and if it’s him. It’s him. “…David. I’m not el míster, here.”

Villa gives him a long, considering look, seems to fight with himself before—

“It’s fucked,” he spits bitterly, eyes dark with what he can’t say, what he’s struggling to say, struggling not to say, and Xavi can’t, he can’t. “It’s so fucking—I just, I didn’t think…”

“You didn’t think your leg would get fucked at the last minute,” Xavi says for him, thinking he gets it, he knows a little bit of what Villa is feeling, but does he? Because Villa’s eyes flash, darken further, before he bites his lip viciously, looks down at his hands again. At his legs.

“Not that,” he says. “I didn’t think we’d get here, you know? But it’s not… _we_ didn’t…” His voice catches, and a few seconds stretch before he goes on, flatly, strainedly. “ _You_ got here. And that’s. That’s…”

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Xavi cuts in, and only Villa could make him so fucking angry and make him hang on to his patience like this. “And you know it is.”

Villa shrugs, the movement sharp, fleeting. “Maybe it is, but—”

“Maybe’s bullshit,” Xavi cuts in again, firmly, and he’s going to make Villa believe him, if he has to be sentimental and ridiculous and cheesy and fuck, if it’s the last fucking thing—“Villa, listen to me. We’re here because of _us_. And you’re part of that. Part of us.”

“And now I’m not because my leg is fucked. And _that’s_ not bullshit,” Villa says, like he’s won the argument and he knows better and just, fuck, his voice is strained still, strained and hollow and it’s like he’s holding himself back, and—

And that’s when Xavi realizes that Villa is crying, harsh and silent and he’s crying, head bowed. And he doesn’t know what to think; he has the creeping sensation of voyeurism, that this is something he shouldn’t be seeing, that Villa wouldn’t want him to see and _doesn’t_ want him to see—

A tear slides down Villa’s nose; his chest heaves and his hands ball themselves into fists but he can’t keep it in, can’t, he lets out a little gasp, sniffs loudly, and just like that Xavi can’t stand it. He doesn’t think, just reaches out and grasps Villa’s shoulder and pulls him in to him. Villa’s body tenses, trembles in his arms, but he doesn’t resist and his forehead bumps against Xavi’s shoulder; he scrubs at his eyes furiously before he submits, lets the sobs rack his body, lets Xavi hold him. Something inside Xavi wrenches, hearing him like that, but he’s warm and solid against him, hair soft against his cheek and breath ragged against his neck and Xavi doesn’t want to let him go.

Not until.

 

When Xavi picked Torres out in the thirty-third minute and it happened, he thought of Villa.

 

He thought of Villa that summer, when the rumors started circulating, and of Iker, that day they’d both stood there and watched him and known it would come to this.

He’d thought—and it had hurt, fuck it surprised him, how much, how much…to see him like that, to know what was going to happen and what wasn’t. Going to happen. Not going to…

 

“What do you think?” he asks over the phone.

Xavi takes a long time answering.

“You look good in white,” he says finally. Villa can take that how he wants.

 

Going to happen. It didn’t. 

He’d heard about Real Madrid on the rise, about Madrid and Villa and how Villa could be Madrid but Madrid—

Madrid couldn’t be Villa. They already had their Siete.

He’d heard about Madrid and Villa but after, all he heard about was Raúl and Villa. And then just Raúl.

 

“You okay?”

“Yeah. It didn’t work out. That’s all.”

“There’s always next year.”

“The whole time, I…I just wanted it to be over. Why isn’t it over?”

“You know Spaniards, always have to have something to talk about.”

“I thought that was Catalans.”

“Just wait till next year, you’ll see.”

“I can’t stay in Valencia, can I.”

“No. And if you did, it would never be over.”

“I kind of hate talking to you.”

“I know. Which is why you call all the time, right?”

“I just feel sorry for you.”

“Well, you should. If you didn’t call, I’d be stuck with Puyol _all_ the time, not just ninety percent of it.”

“Should I call him instead of you, next time?”

“You little asshole.”

 

 

“How the fuck did we lose?”

“How the fuck did the fucking _U.S._ beat us? I feel like I’ve been raped.” 

Normally Xavi would be the one to make the analogy, but it bothers him to hear it from Villa because with him it’s not the same, football is football is always football and there’s no ‘should’ in football. Not a romantic. Not like Xavi.

Villa rests his chin on the neck of his bottle childishly. Xavi’s eyes are drawn to the clean white line of his neck and jaw before he realizes belatedly and looks away. Villa’s mumbling when he speaks again, “I don’t want to go back tomorrow.”

Xavi stares into the recesses of his own drink. He’d kill for shitty Spanish beer right now, but all the hotel has is high-class shit from Germany, wherever the fuck.

“I wish I was already back,” he says.

“In Barcelona?”

“Where else?” Xavi says automatically, before he catches sight of Villa and remembers and realizes how fucking miserable he looks. He reaches out to grasp Villa’s shoulder, fingers feeling thick and clumsy against the softness of his shirt. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Villa says, and his shoulder tenses slightly under Xavi’s hand, but he doesn’t shrug him off, just takes another drink and stares murkily ahead. “Whatever the fuck. I wish I were back too.”

Xavi bites at his lip. They haven’t talked about it, doesn’t matter because it’s been between them all summer, they want to talk about it so badly but don’t know how and what if—what if…but he’s drunk and it’s all so fucked right now, so, “Back where?”

“I don’t know,” Villa says, still not looking at him, but Xavi knows that furrow of his brow and twist of his mouth and it slices through him, before Villa lets it go and it slides back. What they’re talking about. “Anywhere but this fucking place.”

It’s two in the morning and they’re sitting up in Villa’s room, a massive suite like all their rooms, in the kitchenette, lights turned low after they started giving them a headache, and Xavi thinks, this is what hell fucking looks like. Hotel rooms after a loss.

“We’re coming back next year,” Xavi says, not sure how he’s ended up like this, trying to make all this shit smell like roses, but he can’t stand fucking seeing David like this, can’t stand—“We’ll take it all back.”

Villa looks at him sideways, gives him a smile that’s no worse than his scowl except that it’s a smile and he’s looking at him now and something in Xavi’s chest eases slightly. “Like the Euro?”

“Better. The fucking world, man,” he says, squeezing his shoulder, fingers blunt against the sharpness of Villa’s bones and the warmth of his skin, before he lets his hand slide away. 

“Yeah, I know,” Villa says, but Xavi feels like he doesn’t know, not right now, not like this, he doesn’t but he will and that should be enough. “It’s just…all this waiting around kills me, you know?” Villa’s eyes slide away from his before he seems to struggle with himself and meets Xavi’s gaze again. “I fucking hate not knowing. I fucking…I hate it.”

And just like that, it’s Xavi who can’t talk about it, can’t fucking…He takes a swig of his drink and welcomes the burn in his throat; makes him feel more awake, somehow, more himself. The silence between them is tense as fuck but then slides into limbo again. Xavi throws back some more, hacks. 

“God, the fucking U.S. What bullshit. We should be better than that.”

“We are better than that,” Villa reminds him, and for a second Xavi loses who they are in the conversation—is he Villa and is Villa being him and what are they talking about. It’s like a circle, they keep coming back to it and nothing. It’s the same and it’s nothing. “We’re not better than football.”

“Fuck,” Xavi mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face, it’s nothing and neither of them feel better but that sounds like Villa again, and maybe Xavi does feel better, a little. “Am I cheering you up or are you cheering me up?”

“Neither,” Villa says disgustedly, but then he laughs wanly, glances over at him, and just like that Xavi feels the smile tugging at his mouth. “I feel better, though. Thanks. Xavi.”

“Don’t mention it,” Xavi retorts, wondering if he actually does. Feel better.

“Xavi,” Villa says again.

Villa sways drunkenly in his chair, grasping Xavi’s knee for balance, and Xavi must be drunker than he thought, they both must be, because suddenly Villa’s face is right next to his, eyes shadowed by the dark fringe of his lashes, and all Xavi can think is how beautiful, how—he’s wanted it for so fucking long, wants to, he wants Villa to—to—

Villa’s breath puffs hotly against his lips, and he wants he wants he wants, but something in the back of his mind is telling him that Villa’s drunk, so fucking drunk, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing…they’re a breath apart…Villa’s close so close but the voice is screaming in his head now, and the idea of Villa giving him everything he wants, when he’s like this, when he’s out of his fucking mind falling over drunk, it’s—it’s fucking unbearable.

So Xavi turns his head away and the movement causes Villa’s lips to graze his cheek; it’s just the barest touch but it burns through him, along with the full pain of what he couldn’t take and what he can’t have. Villa pulls back and the silence is louder than anything, blinding, and Xavi hates it, hates that there has to be silence and restraint and.

(what he can’t have)

“Where are you going next year?” he says, and he’s almost surprised to hear his own voice, ugly and sharp and all wrong. It’s all wrong. But he wants an answer, it’s the most he can ask for but the least he can expect.

For a long time Villa doesn’t answer and Xavi feels angry with him as well, suddenly. But eventually he says, “Wherever Valencia decides. Maybe nowhere.”

“So you’d go to Madrid,” Xavi says loudly, and his voice—it’s getting, it’s uglier, uglier with the feeling inside him. “Just like that.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?” Xavi snaps. “Like it’s either Barça or Real and you’d just fucking go to either? Because that’s _exactly_ —”

“I don’t have a fucking choice, Xavi,” Villa interrupts angrily, and that just makes Xavi crazy, because he knows it’s true but it isn’t true and Xavi can never see it that way, not that way. Not with Villa. Not with—not when…

“Well, you can’t have both, Villa,” he retorts, and he’s dimly aware his voice is still and rising and he might be shouting now. And if Villa’s angry he’s fucking furious, he’s drunk and he’s furious and it’s all so sudden but it’s not sudden, this has been building up inside him and building up and building up until. “Fuck, between those two it’s _always_ a choice.”

“Figo,” Villa says quietly, but his voice is dangerous and it’s all wrong but suddenly the image of Villa sitting across from him in that dining hall throbs through his head so clearly—

“You still don’t know a fucking thing, do you?”

Xavi’s chest seethes and his heart seizes and he hates himself as soon as the words are out of his mouth, hates himself for not taking it back, not apologizing, not admitting he’s being a bastard. For the sick, angry satisfaction he takes when Villa’s eyes flash and his brow knits furiously and—

“It’s _you_ who doesn’t fucking know,” Villa snarls viciously. “None of you fucking know _anything!_ You’re at Barça, Madrid, you win. Otherwise…” Villa makes a violent gesture, catches himself against the counter when he sways again. “I’m not you, okay? I’m not from there. I’m not some fucking wunderkind from the cantera who grew up and just—I don’t mean…” Villa cuts his eyes away wrathfully but Xavi can’t stop staring at him, stares at him so hard he wonders what he’s even seeing anymore. “I’m from fucking Sporting, okay? Barça, Madrid, it’s all the fucking same. You’re the only ones who can’t see it.”

“And you’re the only one who can’t see that you’re still trying to be Raúl,” Xavi mutters; his voice is lower now, harsh and strained, but he knows Villa’s heard him when the silence closes in on them again like a vice. Villa’s eyes promise a thousand ways to die, all of them painful, but he goes white, goes deathly still, and Xavi can’t take him like that, can’t take that he wants him like that right now. “You’ve got his shirt but you’re not him. You’re fucking _David Villa_. When is that going to be enough for you?”

 

They weren’t in any state to storm off but it just made it worse, when Xavi stumbled blindly away from him, had to feel his way along the walls, jerked at the door before it opened, dropped his key outside his own room, but that didn’t matter right then, he just slid down onto the floor next to it and buried his face in his hands.

 

He’s not fucking crying. What for. It was just an argument, it was just…

Villa can still come to Barcelona. He can still come and Pep wants him to come, they all want him to come. He’ll come.

Villa is—they are, they’re just…

Xavi thinks he might be crying.

 

“I’m staying with Valencia this year.”

“I know.”

And that’s Villa all over, that’s why everybody loves him and Xavi does too, because with anybody else it would be, _Valencia won’t sell me this year_. And Xavi wants to hate him for it but he’s been there already and now he can’t.

“Xavi.”

Xavi sighs, rests his forehead against the wall; he’d been making a sandwich when the phone rang. 

“Yeah?”

“I just…” Villa clears his throat, hesitates; Xavi knows it’s because he’s not sure if he should say it, not because he’s choosing his words, because it’s Villa and he doesn’t. Not like that. “I meant what I said. About Barcelona and Madrid being the same.”

“I know,” Xavi says. Part of him hates Villa for dragging it all up again, but mostly he hates himself for what he’d said in that hotel room. “I shouldn’t have…”

“No,” Villa interrupts him quickly, too quickly, “I didn’t mean…” There’s a pause, a long pause in which Xavi waits, waits, until Villa goes on, voice strangely flat. “I would have chosen Barça.”

It hurts to hear that from David only now, after Pep had wrestled with Valencia’s board as long as he could and Laporta had come back with the vague promise of next year, convinced him to go with Ibrahimovic, after Pep had told them all and Xavi had spent the next few days avoiding Puyol and Iniesta so he didn’t have to put up with their attempts to make him feel better. Because he won’t feel better about this.

“We haven’t given up on you, yet,” Xavi tells him, not sure if he’s saying it for Villa or for himself.

“Xavi, you have fucking Ibrahimovic now,” Villa says, voice still flat and it kills Xavi to hear him like that right now—“You don’t need—”

“Villa, just—” he clenches his teeth, sighs, doesn’t know, just, just—“Just shut the fuck up, okay?”

“Xavi,” Villa begins, but Xavi won’t let him, won’t, for once—

“We all wanted you to—but Valencia just wouldn’t fucking…” He realizes his fingers are tightening on the phone and makes an effort to relax, sighs explosively, runs his hand through his hair and slams his hand down on the counter. Villa’s breathing is even in his ear.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry, Xavi,” Villa says, and that’s the last thing he’d…

“What?”

“We would have been great,” Villa says, and from his voice Xavi can tell he’s smiling. His chest aches but he can’t help it, he knows how it looks, how Villa looks right now, eyes crinkled up at the corners and just a hint of teeth.

“Me doing all the work, you getting all the credit,” he says, going along with it, and he’s surprised but the thing in his chest eases slightly.

Villa laughs. “Great, like I said.”

As soon as he hears him the smile unfurls upon his own lips, and it’s not as painful as he’d thought, maybe, but fuck it hurts, it hurts. 

“Even if I’d have to put up with you everyday…”

“You’d love that,” Villa teases him, and Xavi’s smile widens, hurts a little less and a little more. “That would have been the best part.”

Xavi makes a dissenting noise, drawing it out low in his throat, exaggerating. “You’re bad enough over the phone—”

“And even better in person, I know,” Villa finishes for him without missing a beat, and Xavi has to laugh. It fades and things settle into silence between them.

“Villa.”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted you to come,” he says; his heart seizes but he has to say it, now, even if he’s not sure he wants Villa to hear him say it, if he wants to hear himself say it, but he has to. Has to—“I want you to come.”

“Don’t,” Villa says, too quickly, and Xavi’s gut wrenches horribly, before he tries to clarify. “Not right now, okay? Not after _this_ fucking summer…” There’s a long pause in which Xavi strains to hear Villa’s breathing or his heartbeat or whatever the fuck, something, anything, and it’s crazy and it’s pathetic and fuck. “Xavi. Thanks. For being my friend.”

There are a million other things but only one thing.

“Villa?”

“What now?”

“Why?”

He knows Villa will get it. Why. And sure enough.

“Raúl isn’t everything,” Villa says finally, and if it were anybody else, Xavi would have known for sure they were throwing his words back in his face. Not Villa, not with him. “There’s Luis Enrique. Quini.”

“And there’s you.”

They hang up but that’s not all there is, there’s the little things they’ve left hanging, things unspoken and maybe unthought and maybe it’s just Xavi.

And there’s you—

_And there’s you and me._

You.

And me?

 

“Villa isn’t scoring much.”

Xavi had heard that from everyone on the fucking planet, it seemed like, right down to Villa himself, but hearing from Iker was worse than anyone else. Anyone on the fucking planet.

“Seventeen in the league and three in the Champions isn’t bad,” Xavi snapped, but he still didn’t mention the two he got past Iker, because of who they were and what was coming up—he wanted his sanity, and some humanity couldn’t fucking hurt either.

“I’m not even going to ask why that’s just up in your head somewhere,” Iker said, sounding amused. “You’ve always been like that. But…”

“But…” Xavi echoed, frustrated. “What, Iker?”

There was a distinct pause.

“Maybe this shouldn’t come from me,” Iker said finally, “but Villa doesn’t seem like…”

“He hasn’t played on the wings before,” Xavi said quickly, too quickly, he realized as soon as the words left his mouth. “That’s probably what you’re—”

“He played great on the left at the World Cup,” Iker said, cutting across him, and there was a flat quality to his voice that Xavi didn’t like; that was Iker, when he didn’t know how to sound, when he was concerned but didn’t know how the fuck to. To… “Look, Xavi, I’m just…Villa doesn’t seem like Villa.”

 

His voice is flat but it’s like a sliver of glass in Xavi’s thumb, sharp, niggling.

 

“You should stop running so fucking much,” Xavi suggests, but it doesn’t sound like a suggestion, it sounds more like a demand. “The ball will come to you.”

“I don’t run, Messi can’t run,” Villa snaps, passing the ball back to him, kicking it long, so Xavi has to bend his leg out, catch it against his knee. “And then what? The defense would smother him.”

Xavi let the ball drop. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Villa frowns at him, but not like he’s mad, like he’s waiting for his fucking pass. “It’ll come back.”

“And if…?” Xavi mutters, leaves it hanging, because if Villa, if Villa—he sighs, kicks the ball back. “Never mind.”

Villa is watching him closely, too closely, so that he lets the ball sail past him, landing and bouncing to a stop a few feet behind him.

“If it doesn’t?”

It’s out in the open and Xavi didn’t say it, but it’s out and now he can’t take his eyes off Villa. Villa smiles ever so slightly.

“I’ll just be useful any way I can,” Villa says, and it doesn’t sound like him and what. This is Villa—and Villa, he’s not, not like this. He’s _Villa_. “I’m getting better at defending, now. Getting better on the right, too. Still shit, but…”

He trails off into a mutter as he stretches a leg back, drags his foot along the grass and brings the ball in front of him. Xavi watches him, numb, disbelieving—

“You sound like Pep, and it’s—”

“Yeah?” Villa says absently, amusedly, lifting his head.

—disbelieving and _angry_ , angry in his disbelief—

“—It’s bullshit,” he finishes forcefully, and Villa stills finally, finally. “You’re fucking _David Villa_.”

“You said that to me before, you know,” Villa says, and the way he’s staring at him, Xavi thinks maybe he’s gotten through to him and he’s talking to Villa again, the fucking David Villa they both know, but—“And I’ll still be David Villa, if I never score another fucking goal again.”

“I—don’t, you don’t _really_ fucking…” Xavi’s struggling with himself, he can’t, it’s like he’s found an insect with its wings picked off, it’s wrong the way that’s wrong, and he can’t, and Villa can’t. He won’t let him. “You don’t mean that.”

Won’t let him. Won’t let—

But Villa’s face darkens and he scowls at him the way he did when they first met, when Xavi pulled out the chair and he looked up at him and they met.

“If you don’t want me here, then just fucking say it. Maybe you can trade me in for Ibra again next year.”

And then he turns on his heel stalks off, and it’s all wrong, still wrong, and Xavi only wanted to make it right. Wants to make it right but can’t and what is right? When everything’s so fucking, so fucking—

“Villa,” he calls after him, halfheartedly, but Villa doesn’t stop, so, louder, “Villa!”

So fucking wrong.

 

Villa didn’t talk to him in training the next day. When Xavi came up to him he moved away before Xavi could even open his mouth, went instead to work with the new kid, Ibi, leaving Xavi to Puyol. His throat felt tight, mouth like sandpaper. Puyol didn’t say anything.

That was like Villa. Not ignoring Xavi. But working with Afellay because he it had been months but Afellay was still new. Still new like.

Villa.

 

It’s like Villa and Xavi knows it is, just like he knows what isn’t Villa, but it confuses him, because.

Does he?

 

Another few days and Xavi didn’t know before that you could miss someone you saw everyday. But he does, as much as he missed him at the end of last summer, the summer before, every season when he was in Barcelona and Villa was in Valencia and they weren’t.

Because right now, _they—_

It’s the same as before.

And maybe that makes it worse.

 

“What’s with you and David?”

Iniesta, finally.

He cornered him in the locker room after training; everyone else was gone—Villa had bummed a ride from Busi, and somehow it was just the two of them now.

Xavi shrugged, gave him a sidelong glance and tried with all his might to stay casual. “Nothing, why?”

“Xavi,” Iniesta said, in that annoying way of his, like a parent who knows their kid is in the shitter and knows that they’re going to weasel whatever it is out of them eventually, so might as well…

“I don’t know,” Xavi said, more honestly than he’d care to admit.

Iniesta pursed his lips. “I think you do.”

And that was a little too much of that.

“I’m not sure _you_ do, Andrés,” he said irritably, halfway through pulling on his shirt.

“Four clásicos,” Iniesta said, not taking the hint, maybe, but then Xavi felt like he knew where this was going, somehow. “That’s a lot of Madrid.” Iniesta glanced at him, and then Xavi fucking _knew_. “He almost went there, you know. After the Euro.”

Xavi sat down on the bench to put on his shoes and Iniesta followed him, settling next to him, not taking his eyes off him.

“But he ended up here, instead,” he said brusquely, voice heavy because of the way his knees were digging into his chest, not because.

“I thought he would. Go there. He would have been brilliant.”

“ _Andrés_ ,” Xavi said, voice harsh with warning, because maybe he didn’t have the right to think like that, to think, but Iniesta sure as fuck didn’t have the right to say—not to him. Not about.

“But then, _I don’t know that_ ,” Iniesta continued carefully, as if he wanted to make sure this was going in somewhere. “Xavi. What I’m saying is, maybe you should…”

Xavi straightened, giving in finally; they were going to talk, whether he wanted to or not, because this was Iniesta and this was him and they were them. “What?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” Iniesta paused, and Xavi knew he was weighing his words carefully and it kind of pissed him off, put him on the defensive. “But you should stop taking it out on him.”

“I’m not,” Xavi said swiftly, before he even, because he didn’t—taking what out. _What?_

“You think he’s here because of you, so you feel guilty,” Iniesta said quietly, and it wasn’t a question or an accusation, just a statement, but Xavi couldn’t take it like that, couldn’t—

“That’s,” he began, floundering but needing to talk, to get this straight because what Iniesta is thinking, that’s, “that’s not. Definitely, not. No.”

“Look, maybe he is, maybe he isn’t,” Iniesta pressed impatiently but keeping his voice low, pushing Xavi past what he couldn’t get past. “That’s between you two. But I just…” For the first time Iniesta looked unsure and his gaze wavered, before he gave a small shrug and went on. “David is David. He can’t be anyone else, not for anyone. Okay? So whatever the bullshit, don’t feel guilty.”

“Andrés, you don’t know what the fuck…I don’t, I’m not…” Xavi took a deep breath, before glancing over at Iniesta and standing up. “But thanks.”

Iniesta stood as well.

“Don’t talk to me,” he said, pulling on his jacket and giving him that smile, shy and painful, almost a grimace. “Talk to him.”

 

Talk to him.

 

“You know when I said that I would have chosen Barça,” Villa says finally. It’s practically the first thing he says after letting Xavi in grudgingly, showing him into the living room and sitting down on the couch next to him.

Xavi wonders if Iniesta talked to him, too, but he doesn’t think, not Iniesta, not with Villa and not like that.

“Yeah,” he says, and he does, too well for a phone call over a year ago; he’s heard that the after makes you forget the before, but he can’t, and maybe they don’t have an after. “You said it was because of Enrique…”

“…and not Raúl, or some shit,” Villa finishes for him, wrinkling his brow as he looks at Xavi. “That was bullshit. And I think you know that.”

Xavi didn’t. Doesn’t. Because he hadn’t thought—

“Villa,” he begins, not sure what he’s going to say, what Villa means, what Xavi wants him to mean.

“Shut the fuck up,” Villa says, eyeing him with growing incredulity, the barest hint of teeth behind the slightest smile. “You do. You fucking have to, by now.”

“I don’t know what…” Xavi begins again, feeling like his heart is standing still in his chest.

“I didn’t want to come because of them,” Villa says bluntly, before he looks away and scrubs a hand across his nose, and Xavi tries to follow, to catch his eyes again, but Villa keeps his head turned, sharp in profile. “I wanted to come because of you. I came because of you.”

“Iniesta,” Xavi mutters stupidly; it’s all he can think to say, but the word catches in his throat and dies on his lips. Iniesta was, he was. Right. Villa, he. Villa. Him. Villa and him and, and—“Villa, I—I’m…”

Villa’s eyes cut to his again, suddenly, like he can look at him again and now neither can look away. Villa’s eyes look dark but they’re bright too, bright with anger or what Villa—to him, what he…

“But just fucking—” Villa breaks off, struggles with himself, to find the right words as Xavi waits. For the right words. “Just fuck off about it, okay? If things don’t work out here, don’t get like this.”

“Like what?” Xavi says dumbly, and he can’t, because like what? Like what.

—like this, like they’ve been for as long as he can remember, as long as—

“Like…” Villa’s mouth twists and he’s still looking. The right words. “Like it’s your fault or something. I’m here, so whatever I do…” Villa leans in, puts a hand on Xavi’s shoulder, claw like, hot through his shirt, tight against his bones. “It’s me. If I fuck up or I score a hundred goals or I get injured…or, or _whatever_ fucking—it’s just. Me.”

The right words.

Silence.

Xavi feels the silence; it’s not a weight, but a caress.

“You’re here for me,” Xavi says, because he can now, and he wants to, wants… “For me.”

“Yeah, I—” Villa cuts himself off, gives him an odd look that says everything and nothing, nothing that they can’t say right now, if. “Yes.”

“Villa, I,” he says, then decides to say it. “What does that mean?”

“I think you know,” Villa says again, smiling; it’s sudden, but it spreads across his face slowly, shyly and it hits Xavi like a fucking…it’s, he’s. Beautiful.

“Villa…I…”

“Xavi,” Villa says back, and his voice is softer than he’s ever heard it, maybe. And right now, he….he thinks he can, that he could just…if he wanted to, he could and he does want, wants to…

Villa’s eyes grow heavy and his eyelids slide almost shut the closer he gets, until his eyelashes curl delicately against his cheeks. Xavi could count them if he wanted to, but he’s…it’s fucking _Villa_ and Xavi can’t look away from…the way Villa’s head tilts imperceptibly towards his and his lips part ever so slightly and the way he’s going to stay like that, going to wait, for Xavi, for Xavi to…

It’s only a few centimeters, a heartbeat away, but it feels like forever when Xavi leans in and then suddenly their lips have met; his breath fumbles against Villa’s mouth before Villa makes a noise, quiet and impatient, and fuck, Xavi presses in closer, closer till his own lips press back against his teeth and they sit there and Xavi thinks maybe he’s going to die just like that, just the way he’s feeling—

Villa’s lips slide against his own, the movement clumsy as their noses bump, but Xavi’s chest sears and suddenly he can move; their lips move together, crushed tight and painful and they kiss and kiss and kiss and fuck it’s all Xavi can feel, can feel himself getting lost—

Villa’s tongue flicks against his lips and Xavi meets it with his own, but Villa pulls back ever so slightly, slides a hand through Xavi’s hair before his fingers knot in it tightly, painfully but Xavi, doesn’t, he cant. He follows Villa and when Villa pulls back again and he can feel his smile against his lips, Xavi grasps his neck, forces him back in, presses his tongue into Villa’s mouth, deeply when he hears him moan, when he knows it’s what he wants, what he’s wanted, what they’ve both wanted and what they both want and.

 

Xavi has never felt like he feels, when he presses forward and Villa stares up at him with dark eyes and takes him in and he’s inside him and.

Beautiful.

Beautiful when Xavi says, “Good?” and Villa laughs, the sound hitching in his throat when Xavi shifts forward, the sound in his voice when he says, “I won’t be able to sit down for a fucking week,” and Xavi smiles against his neck, says, “Good.”

When suddenly Villa’s hand closes like a vice on his arm and his heel digs into the small of his back, and he makes this noise, half a growl, half a whimper.

“Oh, fuck—like that. That.”

“That?”

“No, not—yes, _that. Fuck._ ”

When Villa’s legs squeeze around his hips and his fingers claw at his shoulders and they reach where, where they’ll, Xavi and Villa and together—them, together—and it all goes white.

 

 

The first time Xavi saw Villa in the blaugrana, he felt like his heart would burst. The first time he scored and the first time Camp Nou chanted his name, and each time after that, like it would just fucking burst, and he wasn’t sure what he loved more, or how to love more—

But he knew who. Who he loved most, more than any of that, and that was why. That was why his heart was bursting.

 

It’s pathetic, and maybe his heart doesn’t burst, but it comes close enough, and it’s enough, the first day, to see Villa in the training kit, the Watermelon Fusion or Voltage Cherry or whatever the fuck.

“It’s weird, being in Camp Nou and not feeling like I’m about to be fucking sacrificed or something,” Villa says.

“Better not flop, then, if you like things like that,” Xavi jokes, and it’s a joke, it’s just a joke, but Villa scowls and pushes at him.

“Don’t,” he grouses, “don’t fucking ruin this for me. Especially if it’s not going last.”

Xavi laughs, grabs a ball and grabs Villa and they walk across the field together, grass silken against their ankles.

“It’ll last.”


End file.
